


Symbiosis

by NikitaHawkeye



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: F/M, Speculative, shinkane if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:01:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26101588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NikitaHawkeye/pseuds/NikitaHawkeye
Summary: What they had was a symbiotic relationship founded on mutual distrust and harmless half-truths.
Relationships: Homura Shizuka/Tsunemori Akane, Kougami Shinya/Tsunemori Akane
Comments: 13
Kudos: 46





	Symbiosis

In hindsight, perhaps she shouldn't have dismissed it as automatic antipathy in the beginning.

During the first month of her self-orchestrated exile, Akane was introduced to something she can't quite call a man, and she can't quite call a cybernetic organism. He was, she supposed, an in-between creature with a mechanical battery for a heart and a charming smile reserved for those he planned to devour for dinner later.

He introduced himself as Homura Shizuka, the man with the answers, the final piece to her puzzle, the skeleton key to that one door she couldn't unlock. Every word was laced with an enticing promise and an equally seductive smile, and any other person would have ignored the fangs that threatened to show at the edge of his curved lips, would have keeled over his mouth-watering offer and immaculate three-piece suit, but she learned from the best.

_If it's too good to be true, it probably is._

And so she shook his hand and looked at him straight in the eye, deeply aware that she might be trading the devil for the deep blue sea, all the while preparing herself for the worst.

Akane trusted him as far as she could throw him.

She knew, however, that the feeling was mutual from the beginning.

—

Tsunemori Akane's reputation precedes her.

Shizuka had been right about her for the most part; her earnest face and unassuming presence betrayed the natural wariness a born detective would harbor towards someone who presents themselves as the _deus ex machina_ to a current predicament. That was her first test, and she passed it with flying colors.

What he did not expect, however, was the calm resolution that immediately followed.

Clearly, she did not trust him one bit, and yet the meeting ended with mutual agreement and a handshake. He expected vague answers or a swift rejection, not a cold, calculating look that he would have missed if he was not paying attention.

He could tell that she saw through his facade immediately, could tell that she was drafting a script of her own in her pretty little brilliant mind the moment she expressed her acquiescence to his plans.

He found it irritatingly fascinating.

Looking back, that was the beginning of a beautiful partnership built on mutual distrust and harmless half-truths.

—

His visits did not stop there.

Homura sat across her, a set of glass chess pieces spread out between them. Akane briefly wondered if his grand schemes have been too boring for him lately.

"Where did you learn to play?" He asks, his deft fingers swiftly taking her rook in a heartbeat.

"I taught myself." She answers, claiming his bishop in turn.

"Interesting. Is your no collateral damage policy self-taught too?"

She stills, but only for a moment. "I thought we were talking about chess."

He stood up and walked behind her, his fingertips idly tracing the back of her chair as he spoke. "Should I be worried about that, Miss Tsunemori?"

It was a subtle threat rasped behind her neck, and yet Akane felt a different kind of chill.

_The kind she hasn't felt in a long, long time._

She swallows the dark anticipation that pooled in her stomach, then took a quiet breath to soothe her nerves.

"Trust me," she murmurs, then leans against his fingers on the backrest, "that should be the least of your worries."

—

"It seems your knight has returned."

Homura watched as she blinked at the statement, watched as her curled lashes fan away whatever reaction she had at his attempt to ruffle her feathers.

_She is getting better at this._ Homura had to smile wryly at that.

"Knight?" She shoots back, laughter in her voice but none in her eyes, and he wondered what it is she found so amusing.

Homura raised his brow, one that says _are you going to feign ignorance?_ to which she responded with an equally challenging gaze, her brown orbs that dares him, _do you really want to do this?_

_Are they really going to stoop to something as low as dropping names?_

Finally, he smiled obligingly, a gesture meant to express concession, one that she took in quietly and gracefully.

Or so he thought.

“Well,” she almost purrs, the corner of her mouth lifted in amusement, “aren’t you supposed to be my knight in shining armor?”

He’d let her have this small victory. He’d eventually win anyway, with his fingertips on her bruises and later, his tongue on her wounds.

—

He delivered.

It had been a month since Akane was released back into the world, and she almost forgets about the smoke-and-mirrors deal she had with him, almost forgets that she still had her end of the bargain to keep. Almost.

It’s especially easy to forget that in times like this, when she’s naked and writhing under _this_ man, the smell of his smoke enveloping every crevice of her brain like it did for the past years, only this time he’s transmitting it through skin-to-skin contact, so close that she’s pretty sure their bodies have molten and melded in places where it’s impossible to separate.

Her knight, someone once called him, but _this_ man’s feral gaze did not promise salvation. He was and has always been her hound, evident by the way he hungrily stares at her form and noses through the nooks he wished to devour.

Hungry stares. Why does this stare look vaguely familiar?

Her memory wanders to a different pair of eyes, ones that did not leave hers as he droned on about strategies while his nimble hands quickly knock her queen off the board with a smug smile.

_Oh._

She shudders, and this time she can’t tell whether it’s because of the man crawling back on top of her, or because of the revelation she just arrived to.

—

He can smell him on her.

Tsunemori Akane sat across him, her eyes neutral and her lips thinned into a polite smile, her arms neatly folded on her lap. There’s a pile of dossier scattered in front of them now, instead of the usual set of glass chess pieces that had been present ever since the beginning of their unusual alliance.

“I take it the meeting with SAD went well?”

The glint on her eyes disappeared as quickly as it arrived, and again, something he would have missed if he had not been paying attention.

_The hound did not waste time in marking his territory, it seems._

“It did,” she replies, and he wondered if he imagined the satisfaction in her voice, “Hanashiro accepted your terms. We’ll be moving out first thing in the morning.”

He could smell the smoke that emanated from her body, and Homura had to remind himself that she was following a script that he did not have a copy of, that despite their mutual pursuit of justice the word clearly meant different things to the two of them, and that they keep each other’s company based on merits and values, values that could disappear anytime they decide it to be.

He had to remind himself that he needed to focus on his next step, and not on the thought that he could probably wipe the smell off of her if he would just reach out and lay her on the table and press their bodies together, propriety and organization be damned—

But Homura Shizuka is nothing if not controlled and collected, and so he dismisses her with a wordless wave instead, his eyes boring through her body as he watch her walk out of the door.

**Author's Note:**

> based on cloudedhues' (tsunemoris) homura/tsunemori meta on tumblr. i have fallen and i can't get up.


End file.
